Gone Croatan

Nice, I posted this days ago and never checked back.  Sadly, I'd posted it using Safari which hates me.  So, back with Firefox, which crashes, to try again.

I've moved house to the wordpress site.

Squid Ink, take two

don't be skeered

Like I'm one to talk.  Anyway.  We here at Squid Ink will be making a move soon.  Please to check out my current top options.  Weigh in with aesthetic concerns, experience with either blog-hosting site.

Six Gables

Squid Ink

Fun with Food!

Inspired by someone--an imaginary friend, I think?  (Whoever you were, sorry I forgot your contribution) We've started having a Cuisine of the Week.  Each week, we will have the foods of a different land.  Because on Monday I had to go to a meeting and needed to just throw some spaghetti on the table, we started with Italy.  I drew a map of Italy, showing the different regions and each night I've written the food we've had on the region from which it has come.  So Monday was plain ol' sketti with red sauce.  Thought to have originated in the central regions.  Tuesday night,  we had a broccoli and cheese risotto (northern Italy) and a tasty lentil dish I can no longer locate online. Lentil dishes were popularized by Roman Jews.  Wednesday night was parmesan polenta from Vento and a Tuscan Bean dish that was aMAZing for lunch two days later.  Thursday was a meeting day, too so we had pizza--Campania! (I know, American pizza is not Italian pizza.  But I was busy).  Tonight we had Sardinian hard boiled eggs (yum) and Pasta a la Norma from Sicily.  Also yum.  Tomorrow will be Gnocchi (Calabria region) al Pesto (Genova).  Next week we're only here two days.  I think we'll do two days of British food and then flee to a Thanksgiving feast.  Just like the Pilgrims.

ETA:  Yes, this does make me a cooler mom than you.  But you can do it too!  And the best thing is my kids are so much more willing to try new food this way.  Just like with Cheese Night.  On an ordinary night, if I'd said, "It's pasta with eggplant!" they'd have looked at me like I had utterly lost my mind.  But when I say "Pasta al a Norma is from Sicily, this little island that it appears that the boot is kicking!"  They're all "mmm, this is really good!"  Now, I wasn't able to get my non bean-eaters to eat beans or lentils, but they at least are trying the stuff and are game.  So lets see where this goes, shall we?

Well, it amuses me anyway

I'm aware that my seasonal tally of catalogs is tiresome to some.  But it does kind of boggle my mind just how many are out there, looking for ME.  And how they seem to have no idea who I am.

Yesterday:

The Company Store--linens.  so why that name that conjures up being unable to leave a job that is crushing your soul b/c you owe so much to the company store.  Is this a positive association to people?  And they also have "Company Kids" which is just too sad to contemplate.

Plow and Hearth--assorted crap.  page 3 has fleece socks.  Page 19 has chocolate hedgehogs (at long last!).  Page 40 has curtains.  53 has fireplace screens (HEARTH!),  page 66 has twee garden decor (PLOW!). page 71 has sleds.  So  little rhyme or reason. Polar fleece and plaid seem to be the unifying elements.

Eddie Bauer--You're too old for J. Crew.  Enjoy.

Duluth Pack--new one!  Rugged bags for rugged individuals.  The ones pictured in all my other catalogs, but residing not beneath my roof.

Catalog for Philanthropy--  yeeeah.  Oh, it's just a list of small charities, in case money is burning a hole in my pocket.  So that it can escape.

American Science and Surplus--best catalog since the old Archie McPhee changed over to glossy and lame.  www.sciplus.com  Enjoy!  Surely you need an inflatable moose head?

Brookstone--expensive crap you give to people you know nothing about.

Today's haul:

Herrington "The Enthusiast's Catalog"--never heard of it.  Enthusiasts of what, exactly?  According to the cover, clogs and watches.  Seriously weird catalog.  Bamboo towels, Merrell clogs, Masai warrior shoes, NASCAR hawaiian style shirts, Johnny Carson DVDs, puzzles...all I can figure is that it's for fogies.  that's the only common theme I can find.  Weird.

Sharper Image-- "I really have no taste and no interest in the recipients of my gifts.  All I care is that it be CLEAR that I spent a lot of money."

PBS Home Video--Because BBCAmerica can't run EVERY show ever shown in England.

2 identical copies of Sierra Trading Post--In case I mislaid the one from Monday.

Big ass Sears WishBook sized Land's End catalog--yeah, I only buy on clearance, and on-line, so save the tree, folks.

LLBean--see above

And oooo, bestfor last, The Noble Collection--It has this super complicated statue of Dumbledore on the front.  And a Lord of the Rings chess set on the back (hows THAT for a perfect convergence of nerdiness?)  I can't quite decide which irony I prefer--the fact that you can order The ONE Ring in silver or gold and there are, presumably, several for sale or the Spartan shield money clip.  You decide.

Geez, people...

It wasn't a HUGE difference from the last cut, but here I am, being fierce and rocking my pajamas:



But I can't believe Tash would say " Also, this summer, I accidentally turned my hair purple" and then complain that *I* had not photo to show.  Nigga pleez.

Fabulous Hair for Less

I've had quite the range of hair cut experiences.  from cutting my own or going to Steve's barber, all the way up to my last cut at the hands of Sam "Ed Scissorhands" Wong. Today, I ventured into the world of the beauty school.  It's my dirty little secret that I'd kind of love to be a hairdresser, but couldn't handle people flipping out on me.  So I was kind of psyched to visit The Temple, a Paul Mitchell beauty school.  It's in the old Masonic Lodge in downtown Frederick.  (Steve and I used to imagine how cool it would be to buy it and live in it.  It has something like 100k sq ft.  We decided that less than 2k is so much cozier.)  I'd had a couple of friends get cut there with good results and it's only 12 bucks, so hey!  It's only hair, right?  eek.

When I first arrived, I had to sign a release stating that I realize that this is a school, that the stylists are students.  They'll fix what goes wrong if they can, but you won't just get free color if you aren't happy.  So I signed away.  At the same time I was there, there was a mom and dad and 4 kids, two of them identical twin boys.  The oldest was a girl, about 7, 8 at the most.  She was discussing with her mom whether she could get color AND highlights or just highlights.  "No, we did that last time," said mom, "you have a good natural color now, so just do highlights."  oooookay.  And these weren't pageant parents, these were tattooed-and-pierced-and Harley be-buckled parents.  She was chomping her gum with her mouth open and swinging her feet and discussing her hair color.  It was cheezing me off.

Amanda came and rescued me and took me to her station.  She asked what I wanted in a cut and suggested I could get a partial highlight just to touch up my roots.  I agreed b/c it's only $27!  Then Thiery, her "learning leader" ("that's what they make us call teachers," she told me with an eyeroll) came over to see what her plan was. At first I thought, "Hooray!  a professional!" but by the end, I wanted to shoo Thiery away when he came by.   Leave my Amanda alone. They talked color and lifted my hair and matched it with stuff in a book and carried on.  I totally lovedfeeling like a wigstand on Shear Genius (bring it back, Bravo!!).  while she was foiling me (curses!), I was checking out the scene.

There was a clump of students around an older woman who had just come back from some classes in Florida about up-dos.  ("I've got to go to Florida next week.  Up-do classes."  fabulous)  She was using a student to demonstrate and nearly ripping the hair from her head.  I was reminded of those times on the band bus when the black girls would offer to french braid our hair.  They pulled like CRAZY and then told us that white girls were a bunch of babies.  Reparations have been met, my friends.  We paid in white girl scalp.  I commented to Amanda and she said, "Yeah, up-dos hurt.  If it's a good one, anyway.  If you want it to stay up all night, it has to hurt."  So consider yourselves warned.  In another corner, some girls were watching a student giving another student a hand massage.  Some others were practicing make-up.  It looked so FUN.  And knowing that there was surely lingo and in-jokes was just making my grad student senses tingle.  I need to infiltrate their culture!  Study and learn!  And pull hair!

Next to me was a black girl of about 10 who was getting her hair straightened.  It took forEVER.  And it looked better natural.  I wanted to sit her down and empower her, steer her from the Tyra path.  Beauty School Liberator!  Clearly, I'd gotten giddy.  When my 45 min processing was over, Amanda started my cut.  She didn't cut each hair individually, but neither did she karate chop my skull, so I consider that a wash.  And yes, I see the irony of telling the black child not to straighten and then turning right around and having my hair dyed a different color.  So stop being so damned smug.  You just wish YOU could pull off blonde, so neener.   While she was cutting, I grilled Amanda on the experience.   I thought that people who'd come to a school would likely be laid back about their hair, but NO, no, they flip out and get annoyed and then act surprised to learn that a student was cutting.  You sign a damned release, people.  Did you do that at MasterCuts?   She said that the management has had to toss people out.  Which cemented my decision not to suddenly go to beauty school.  Because I was darned close.  ANYway, the color looked great, the cut was very nice, the overall experience fun if lengthy.  I was there 2 hours and 45 min. Cost $39, no tipping allowed.  Woo! 

on aging bodies...

First, a fashion question:  What is up with the size 16 pants with a 34 inch inseam?  Where are all these enormous women?  I realize that Target comes out of Minnesota and they grow 'em big up there, but it's been nationwide long enough.  It's time to realize that most size 16s are not there because they're so very tall.  They're there because they like cookies.  Way to make us feel dumpy as well as fat.  Thanks!

Went to the doc today for hip pain.  I see a nurse practitioner, usually.  I called the office for the appt.  "Who do you see?"  "Elaine."  "Elaine hasn't worked here in over a year."  "Oh, um, whoever replaced Elaine?"  "Well, SHE's out on maternity leave."  "Okay, could I just have someone with qualified medical credentials?"  "I've got a spot with Emily, she's a Physician's Assistant."  So I saw Emily and she's about 15.  And not so much with the eye contact.  so I'm feeling really confident about her.  She thinks I have arthritis and sent me for an xray.  I also discovered that I weigh about 20 lbs more than I thought I did.  I'm at a 3rd trimester weight.  Which would explain those big ol' pants at Target.  I'm not really eating any differently.  "Oh, you're just getting older."  Yeah, I'm not Bea Arthur yet, fetus, so put your little Fisher Price stethoscope up yer pert little bum.  I want a second opinion.

ANTM blather.

We had a week off for a clip show.  We learned there that Bianca can walk full-on into a glass wall and that Jenah never really had the gift of styling her own hair, even before the stank ass weave.  So, this show starts with Sarah getting the loser edit.  We shall see... then off to the hot tub/pool, where Bianca talks about Heather as if she is not there.  But she is.  Bianca seems bitter that Heather just shows up and takes a gorgeous pic without trying.  Wah, no fair!  She cries, like one of my damned kids.  Heather, who is getting better with the eye contact b/c really, you cannot give the hairy eyeball without it and that girl NEEDS the hairy eyeball, points out that she thinks about how the photo is going to look and tries to create art with her body.  The other girls try to gently call Bianca on her stank attitude without turning it on themselves.  Bianca’s eyes roll around in her head like a quarter in one of those things where you drop a quarter down that big funnel and it goes round and round and round,  How’s THAT for a poetic metaphor?  

For todays lesson/ challenge, the girls head off to a studio where they put on flesh colored leotards and character shoes.  Tyra shows up and gives a modified version of Debbie Allen’s Fame speech.  Then she kind of mimes what she’s saying about learning how to move in a sexy way...it looks like learning impaired sign language.  She’s quite masterful.  And TOTALLY out of breath.  Her speech seems to have winded her and she’s gasping out the words as she teaches them a runway walk.  I cannot believe she lets this stuff air.  She teaches them angry sexy stomp and then coy flirty model and then model sliding down the wall.  Many of the girls (heather!) look more like they’ve been shot and are sliding down.  But really, they all look so weird in these body stockings that it’s hard to think of anything else.  They look like fingers.  Remember those gloves that had a face with hair and a hat on each finger?  Like that.  Without hats.  She teaches them to crawl sexily.  No, no she doesn’t.  She SAYS she does, but really it’s just odd.  And when Heather does it, it’s a little scary.  As Bianca rightly points out (oh no, I’m agreeing with Bianca!), Heather can do no wrong.  Tyra actually says that Heather has a “Tim Burtonesque sexuality.”  Seriously?  Like...Ed Wood?  I mean, because then I’m left with various scary but awesome Johnny Depp personas.

So then they’re off to shoot an Enrique Inglesias video.  He’s wicked cute, let’s just put that out there.  Lisa and Heather are chosen for featured roles.  Bianca is chosen to bitch about it.  I must say, Chantal’s belief in her “natural modeling ability” is quite touching.  She is, in fact, very pretty.  But her modeling hasn’t been all that impressive.  But she commits to rock her strips of latex in this video.  She fails, of course.  As one always does when one tells the camera that one is a natural talent.  Newton’s first law of hubris.  Elementary, really.  She’s been getting the Other Girl in the Bottom Two edit, btw.  I’m calling it here, Sarah and Chantal.  Sarah goes home.  Okay, continue.  

The big drama that we were previewed--the required by the FCC once a season medical emergency--was that Heather, who hadn’t eaten in 12 hours, gave out in the knees.  Snore. A real model can go MONTHS on nothing but cocaine and champagne. She did look hellish, but hey, that’s part of her Tim Burtonesque sexy, right?

Heading to panel, Chantal assures us that she will be in the bottom two.  By which I mean she assures us that she is in no danger at all.  But in panel, Nigel tells Sarah that she is “disappearing in front of us.”  That, my friends, is the death knell.  You can’t come back from that.  8 girls, 7 photos.  Tyra calls Lisa, Heather, Saleisha, Bianca, Ambreal, Jenah...and YES!  Who knows the editing? Sarah and Chantal are the bottom two.  Sarah--who, we are reminded, pulled a long paper booger out of her nose at casting--goes home to work out whether to be a plus sized model or a minus sized model.  Next week!  Nekkid Heather goes nutzoid!

It almost smells like gingerbread...

 Ah, Christmas time must be near because my mailbox is about to snap under the weight of the catalogs.  Today I got:

Garnet Hill (clothes I would love to buy if I were rich and thin instead of the opposite of those things)

Smith+noble (for people who dedicate a lot of thought to window "treatments."  I am not that gal.)

Metropolitan Museum of Art Store (for people unaware that you can buy all of the stuff in this catalog in other catalogs for a lot less money.  But it wouldn't be from the Met.)

Sierra Woman Traditions (one of many, many catalogs that Sierra Trading piles on me.  My job doesn't involve leaving the house, so I don't even open this one)

The Country House (why on EARTH am I getting this one?  What mailing list am I on that suggests that I would love to store my toilet brush in a replica of an outhouse?)

Woolrich (they have a catalog?  I don't own a yellow lab, so I don't open this one, either)

Constructive Playthings (cheap toys with many pieces.  Right into the ol' paper bin with this one)

Oriental Trading Beads (must. not. open. Must. Be. Strong!)

Land's End Men (Steve's not needing a whole lot of ties right now)

Beautyhabit Modern Lux Apothecary essentials (yeeeah.  I have no idea)

and, from the "friends of public radio," the Pretty Good Goods catalog (title tells you all you need to know.  could be called Twee Things.  Or Things that Make You Say "Oh, ho!  Now THAT is a clever oven mitt!")

Okay, that's all I have to say right now.  I have to put on my back brace and haul this lot to the recycling bin...

ETA:  Oh STOP it.  I accidentally looked into the prettygood goods catalog.  I expected the handblown glass ornaments of dogs, which can be labs, goldens, westies, or corgis (seriously), but THIS?

What time is it? It’s always now. Live in the moment and celebrate that fact with a “watch” devoid of hands, quartz movement, or day-date window. Instead, the face is an etched pebble, and the “jewels” are simply the sands of time

Oh, and it costs $50. 

That makes me want to punch somebody.

Cats! Dogs! New York! LA!

Halloween brings out one of those great cats vs dogs moments.   Dogs in costume say, "Am I a good dog now?"


Cats in costume say "I will kill you."



Guinea pigs in costume say "wheep?"